Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, despite some of the inflammatory language that we have heard this morning, I would argue that this is a very commonsense, a very modest approach to tort reform. There are absolutely no workers who will not be covered under this particular piece of legislation. It is a fairly narrow bill. It does not affect all products. We are essentially talking about durable goods, capital goods. These are machines that are found in machine shops in factories all over this country. A very good example of how a bill similar to this worked extremely well in this country is the General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994. We had an industry, the small aircraft industry in this country, that was going down the tubes. After this legislation was passed, we have seen it increase substantially. We have seen this industry substantially increase in how it has worked in this country. We have seen twice the number of workers. Now we have 25,000 additional workers in that field. The industry, as the gentleman who spoke earlier today has said, has been revitalized in a number of areas around the country. The United States also is at a competitive disadvantage to many of our other trading partners. For example, the Europeans and the Japanese do not have an 18-year statute of repose, they have a 10-year statute of repose.”